


An Unforgettable Luncheon

by FilmFreak94



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Aurora Borealis, Gen, Steamed Hams, late to the meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 22:06:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14578635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FilmFreak94/pseuds/FilmFreak94
Summary: Greg Universe with his crazy explanationsThe Maheswarans are gonna need some medicationWhen they hear Greg's lame exaggerationsThere'll be trouble in town tonight





	An Unforgettable Luncheon

It was a sweltering day in Beach City as Greg Universe, former singer extraordinare turned humble car wash owner, put the finishing touches on his roast. All he had to do was cut the potatoes, throw in a dash of garlic, add a bit of salt (just a pinch), and then let the oven do the rest of the work. He had copied the recipe from Vidalia after Yellowtail had had a large haul of clams around ten years ago.

He wiped a trail of sweat from his forehead and went to the couch to take a well-needed breather. He hadn’t cooked a meal in Steven’s house for some time, his boy now being old and responsible enough to cook most of his own meals (or at least let one of the Gems do it for him (most likely Pearl)), but this was a special occasion that would require niftier living quarters than his van could provide.

The Maheswarans, Priyanka and her husband Doug, parents of Steven’s best friend Connie, were coming over for what Greg secretly referred to as a “do-over” from the fiasco a few weeks ago where Steven had tried to present them as a typical nuclear family. Each of the three Crystal Gems had happily volunteered to play the “mother” of this little scenario yet Steven couldn’t decide which to best portray this part (even though, ironically, Steven was literally his mother in a sort of strange reincarnation… actually, the more he thought about it that wasn’t funny at all). Naturally, the only decision they came to was to have all three of them fuse into Alexandrite and see where the evening took them. Considering she was the combination of three Gems (one of them already being a fusion), Alexandrite ended up towering over all of them by at least two stories, and that wasn’t even the worst part of the evening.

While they had managed to salvage the night in some way by the Maheswarans approving of the Gems’ somewhat harsh punishment of Steven for trying to run away with Connie when the night had become too awkward (beating Greg to the punch by a few minutes), he couldn’t help but feel bad for making a mess of it and risking a friendship that Steven valued a great deal. And so, he called their house earlier in the week and invited them to the beach house underneath the Temple for a hearty helping of steamed clams.

Steven and the Gems themselves were off on a mission and Connie was still in school, the Maheswarans predicted arrival being half past twelve. It was noon now and the clams would take fifteen minutes to cook. He’d prepared the table outside to eat on the deck, a perfect view overlooking the ocean that reminded him of when he would take picnics with Rose, Steven’s mother. He imagined preparing the meal with her as they had with so many other breakfasts, lunches and dinners, Amethyst sometimes crashing to get all the scraps she could. He smiled to himself as he drifted off to dreamland. Just for a few minutes. Just long enough to let the clams settle…

A sudden knock on the front door alerted Greg from his stupor. He shook his head, rubbing his eyes before realizing the knocker must have been his guests. Or one of his guests. Or perhaps they were both knocking.

He slapped himself a few times to look alive, straightening his long hair, smooshed by the couch that was too comfortable for its own good, and dusted himself off before opening the door. As expected, Priyanka and Doug were waiting on the other side, Priyanka carrying a wine bottle in her hand. Both of them wore casual attire, a buttoned up shirt and dress pants for the former and the same outfit he had worn during their first meeting for the former. They stared at him with a look of slight disapproval, perhaps because of the apron he wore that read, “Kiss the cook,” which they might have deemed inappropriate for a second meal date.  
  
“Well, Greg,” Priyanka spoke first, “We made it.” She mumbled as an aside, “Despite your directions...” Greg didn’t hear her passive aggressive remark amidst his attempt to appear jovial and welcoming, beaming at them with a smile that might suggest he was going to eat them for lunch.  
  
“Ah, Dr. and Mr. Maheswaran, welcome!” He shook both of their hands, restraining himself from what might usually be a hug. “Hope you’re both prepared to get your socks rocked off.” Doug stared at him and then his feet while Priyanka merely made a neutral sound in her throat. He invited them both to have a seat outside while he took the roast out of the…  
  
The oven! No sooner had Greg closed the door when the smell of fresh smoke trickled up to his nostril. Checking the time on the nearby microwave he found, to his horror, that it was a quarter to one and he had overslept. He made a mad dash to the oven, but he was too late to save the clams.  
  
“Oh my stars!” He cried, repeating a phrase he had often heard the Gems using. “My roast is ruined!” He began to panic, wondering how he could explain yet another meal-related failure to the Maheswarans or to his son.

He paced the room trying to find a solution before his eye was drawn to the window, where he could vaguely see a few of the restaurants along the wharf. Then he got an idea.

“What if,” he thought, “I purchased fast food and passed it off as my cooking?” He considered this for a while, going between admiring his cleverness and admonishing himself for trying to deceive Connie’s parents yet again. If they were to find out it was likely they wouldn’t want their daughter associating with Steven or anything to do with him. He imagined the scathing hatred from his son as well as the disapproval of the Gems and found it too stressful, so he did a trick his therapist had recommended to him once to overcome his stage fright; he imagined them saying nice things to him instead.

“Dad,” he heard Steven yell, “you’re amazing! Connie’s parents love you! And I love you too!!!”

“Not bad, Greg,” Garnet said with a thumbs up.

“Delightfully devilish, Greg,” Pearl smiled, not often one to offer him praise.  
  
“You gonna eat those clams, dude?” Amethyst asked, shoving the burned clams down her mouth theoretically.

When he had gotten enough moral support from the figments of his imagination, Greg decided this was the best course of action. Throwing off his apron he went to the window by Steven’s bed, hoping to slip out undetected while the Maheswarans let their wine cool. No sooner had he opened it and had one leg out did the front door open and Priyanka step inside. She began to speak before noticing the smoke coming from the oven and Greg standing clear on the other side of the house, leg propped on the windowsill.

“Dr. Maheswaran!” He yelled, unintentionally. “I, I was just, uh… stretching the old calves on the windowsill! Gotta get that isometric exercise, haha, care to join me?” He began to mime what he thought was isometric exercise while Priyanka remained near the door.  
  
“Why is there smoke coming out of your oven, Greg?” Greg nearly fell on his face as he brought his leg down, stammering to come up with a plausible excuse.

“Oh, that?” His laugh was hoarse, possibly from the smoke. “Oh, that isn’t smoke, it’s steam! Steam from the… steamed clams we’re having. Haha, mmmmmm, steamed clams!” He held his hands together and smiled in as innocent a fashion as he could. Though Priyanka appeared skeptical, she merely responded with an inquisitive glare before returning outside.

“Phew.” Greg wiped more sweat from his brow before slipping out the window, running as fast as he could to the wharf to get some food and come back before he was missed.

 

It had been ten minutes since Priyanka had interruped Greg’s exercises, and she and her husband were beginning to wonder if he had injured himself or even ran away entirely. Just as Doug offered to go check on their host he had finally made his entrace, carrying a platter of three hamburgers along with a multitude of fry bits.  
  
“Okay, who’s ready for some mouth-watering hamburgers?!” He said.

“I thought we were having steamed clams?” Doug asked. Greg made a sound that was not unlike a squawking bird caught in a lie as he placed the platter in the middle of the table, sitting opposite them.  
  
“Oh, no, dang autocorrect must’ve sent the wrong word, I meant ‘steamed hams.’ That’s what I call hamburgers.”

“You call hamburgers, ‘steamed hams?’” Priyanka asked, prodding one of the burgers with her fork.

“Yes!” Greg might have jumped at how his voice had unnaturely jumped a few octaves but restrained himself. “It’s a thing we said back where I grew up.” He said, hoping this would be enough to stave off any more questions.

“Really,” it wasn’t, “what region?” Doug, curious about various dialects around the world, asked.

“Uh, upstate Delmarva?” Greg answered.

“Really?” Doug repeated. “Well, I’m from Wilmingmore and I’ve never heard the phrase ‘steamed hams.’” Greg gulped.

“Oh, pffft, not Wilmingmore, it’s a… Charm City expression.” Doug had had a few jobs at Charm City as an usher in concerts, but hadn’t taken in the local venues enough to know that Greg was lying through his steamed hams.

“I see.” He said.

Greg was grateful for the brief silence that followed. He and Doug ate their burgers conventionally while Priyanka had removed the buns and scraped the cheese from her patty, wrapping the tomatoes in the lettuce creating a makeshift vegetable wrap that Greg might have found impressive had it not been for an observation by Doug.

“You know, these hamburgers remind me of the ones they sell at Beach Citywalk Fries.” He shrunk at the look of icy shame from his wife. “Not that, I would know...” He added.

“Ohohoho,” Greg forced the same laughter he had made when he played Santa for Steven one year, “noooooo. Practically got a trademark on these babies.” He took a few bites of his Greg-burgers (TM), trying to hide the fact that he was sweating both from all the questions and the running he had to do from here, to Beach Citywalk Fries, and back again. “Old family recipe.”

“For ‘steamed hams?’” Priyanka asked.

“Yep!” He smiled through a full mouth.

“Yes, and you call them steamed hams,” Priyanka stuck a fork in her uneaten patty and held it up for Greg to see, “despite the fact they are obviously grilled?” Greg’s eyes became wide. Had his burger not been overly chewed he might have choked as he gulped it down. The Maheswarans were waiting for a response, which Greg was eager to give, opening his mouth to see if something would come out.

“M… y-eh… y’know the… one thing I sh...” If there was anything he had retained from high school it was how to escape an awkward lunch. “Excuse me for a sec.”

“Of course.” Priyanka said, returning to her veggie wrap.

Greg ran back into the house, hoping to catch a breath but finding it difficult from all the smoke inside. In his haste to retrieve a replacement for the burned roast, Greg had forgotten to turn off the oven and now the entire kitchen was on fire. Greg reached both his arms out to the fire, trying to remember where he put the fire extinguisher before remembering the Maheswarans still outside. He was still nailing the lunch, more or less, and all he needed was to send them home with full bellies to consider the day a success. Putting on as casual a face as he could, he stepped back outside, masking a cough with a drawn out yawn.

“Ahhhh, well, that was wonderful,” he said, patting his belly, “Great time for everybody, but man, eating burgers always makes me pooped.” The Maheswarans seemed to get his subliminal hint.

“Yes we should be...” Doug began to say before Priyanka pushed her chair back and stood to her full height pointing at the smoke steadily rising from one of the windows.

“My gosh, what is happening in there?!”

“Aurora Borealis?” Greg had meant to come up with a more believable excuse, yet this was the first thing that he could think of. Owing, perhaps, to the documentary he had seen about the northern lights just the other day. The Maheswarans seemed less than convinced.

“A-Aurora Borealis?!” They said together.

“At this time of year?” Said Doug.

“At this time of day?” Said Priyanka.  
  
“In this part of the country?”

“Localized _entirely_ within your kitchen?”

“Yes?!” Greg winced, ready for the house of cards to tumble (or in this case, burn down). Yet, as the two of them stared at him, Doug’s face fell from bemusement to curiosity.

“May we see it?” He asked. Greg thought to himself for a moment.

“No.”

  
Greg walked the two of them back to their car, parking not too far from where the road met the beach, where a barbed wire fence once stood before Greg had mowed it down with his van. He smiled to himself, keeping their attention away from the burning house as best he could. Not aided by the sudden cry from inside it when the Gems had returned from their mission.

“GREG?!” Came the voice of Pearl. “THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!!”  
  
“No, Pearl,” Greg called behind him, “it’s just the northen lights!”

Doug opened the door to the driver seat as Priyanka hesitated before getting in.

“Well, Greg,” she began, “I’ll be the first to admit you are an odd fellow, but I think I speak for myself and my husband when I say; you steam a good ham.” The fact that she hadn’t even touched the patty did not diminish this compliment for Greg, rubbing his head and blushing. Doug closed the door behind his wife and began to walk around the car to the passenger side when another cry came from the Temple.

“HEEEEEELP!!! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!”

Doug stopped just as he was about to get in the car, looking back towards the house while Greg gave a sheepish thumbs up. The Maheswarans drove away not a minute afterward, driving past the Big Donut and out of sight. Greg heaved a sigh of relief before turning back to the burning house and the three Gems scrambling to put out the fire before it became too large.

“This may not have been worth it.” He decided.


End file.
